Timely justice as a determinant of economic growth

Djankov, Simeon ORCID: 0000-0002-0822-6456, Melcarne, Alessandro, Ramello, Giovanni B. and Spruk, Rok (2025) Timely justice as a determinant of economic growth. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 238. ISSN 0167-2681

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Abstract

We investigate how timeliness in enforcing legal contracts affects economic growth across countries. We focus on judicial timeliness as a proxy for courts’ performance in a large panel of 169 countries over the 2004–2019 period. We show that, by raising uncertainty and promoting opportunistic behaviors in business transactions, slower courts hinder economic development. The relationship is robust to diverse model specifications and appears stronger for business environments more heavily relying on judiciaries such as economies undergoing rapid growth, countries characterized by low human capital and civil law jurisdictions.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Financial Markets Group
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
JEL classification:	K - Law and Economics > K4 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior > K41 - Litigation Process H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H40 - General
Date Deposited:	19 Sep 2025 11:45
Last Modified:	03 Oct 2025 07:57
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129551

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